


A Summer Game

by 100demons



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 12:44:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2468642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arguing with Tajima is like shouting at a typhoon; useless, and ultimately, inconsequential.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Summer Game

Arguing with Tajima is like shouting at a typhoon; useless, and ultimately, inconsequential. And so when Tajima barrels up to Hanai after the end of practice one day, bright red and panting from last minute sprints, words and laughter and sweat pouring out of him in sputtering measures, Hanai simply leans back on his heels and listens.

“We should-- go to-- baseball game!” Tajima puffs out in between gasps, punctuating the sentence with a long chug of water from his plastic pocari bottle.

“You want to _what_?”

Tajima beams up at him. “Momokan said we don’t have practice on Saturday afternoon after morning class, remember? It’s perfect.”

Hanai looks down at the damp curls plastered to Tajima’s forehead, a streak of dirt marring the freckled bridge of his nose. “I think my Mom’s taking me and my sisters to see Grandma that day,” he says slowly. “She lives out in Kanagawa.”

“Oh.” Tajima deflates a little before shaking his head wildly, splattering sweat everywhere. “Sounds like fun, Grandmas are the best. Mine makes really good mochi for the Harvest Festival.”

“Aw c’mon, gross,” Hanai mutters, wiping his face off. “It’s just--”

“I was planning on asking Mihashi anyway.” Tajima slants him a quicksilver smile, brushing his hair back from his forehead. “Make sure to bring back lots of good things to eat for the rest of us! Don’t they have the best gyoza in Kanagawa?”

“Um, yeah,” Hanai says, watching Tajima fade away and drift toward the dugout, where the rest of the team is clustering around Shinooka and her rice balls. He looks quieter and dimmer somehow, though the sun went down a good hour or so ago.

“Wait-- wait, Tajima.”

“Yeah?”

“What time’s the game? I can-- probably go to Grandma’s later at night or even on Sunday if I tell my Mom,” Hanai forces out in a rush.

“Really?”

“If I didn’t go you’d probably jump over the fence and run into the field like an idiot anyway and get kicked out,” Hanai grouses with a huff, looking away. “Is it an afternoon game?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tajima says, bright and almost quivering with excitement. His hand suddenly darts out in a flash and flicks Hanai’s arm. “Race you back! Loser has to carry both gym bags home.”

“Oi!” Hanai starts at the touch, but Tajima is already hurtling through the field, dust clouds rising at his heels and laughter trailing in his wake.

“Idiot,” he mutters under his breath, but Hanai can’t help but follow, Tajima’s slender back just a sliver of white in the darkness.

 

* * *

 

Ten minutes to first pitch, and the faint wisps of a breeze trickling in only make Hanai more aware of how uncomfortably sticky he feels, bandanna dark with sweat. His thighs feel glued to the warm metal bleachers and Hanai briefly contemplates an eternal existence as part of Seibu Dome’s statuary.

“Yo.”

Hanai automatically sticks his hand up, catching the can of Coke before it bangs him on the head. It is wonderfully cold and wet with condensation. He immediately slaps it onto his face and sighs in deep relief.

“Food?”

“Curry rice bento for me and donkatsu bento for you,” Tajima says, placing the stack of boxes down on the ground and safely between their feet. “Takoyaki with benito flakes for the third inning, croquettes for the seventh. And I filled up our water bottles too and I brought empty cups to pee in, in case we really have to use the bathroom during the inning, but I got yelled at the last time I did it, so we have to be super careful. I usually try to hold it in.”

“Are you really planning on never leaving your seat?” Hanai cracks the tab of his soda open, breathing in the hazy fumes of carbon dioxide and processed sugar. It smells like nirvana.

Tajima pulls out a thick black binder from his backpack, along with a sharpened wooden pencil and a battered looking lion-shaped eraser. “Yes,” Tajima says and he looks completely serious, brows drawn tight and hard. For a fleeting moment, Hanai can see the phantom shadow of a batting helmet brim cut across Tajima’s forehead, brown eyes flashing in the darkness.

Hanai’s never seen that look outside the batter’s box before.

“I brought my book.” Tajima flips open the cover, pencil stuck jauntily behind an ear. There are pages and pages of scorecards, filled with lines and names and miniature blacked out fields to represent runs scored. Hundreds of games, scored in their entirety, to every fouled pitch and pinch-runner.

“How many of these have you done?” Hanai asks, awed.

“The binder only fits a couple hundred, I think.” Tajma thumbs through the pages casually. “I have some more filled up at home. This is my NPB binder, I use a blue colored one for the MLB ones.”

“And to think,” Hanai says slowly, turning the words over his head, and the hundreds of batting lineups scribbled down in his tight, cramped handwriting, “that if you’d even put half this kind of effort into school, you’d probably have your choice of universities.”

“That’s school,” Tajima says, matter of fact. “But this is baseball.”

Hanai looks down at his soda, studying the glitter of light playing against the gray and red aluminum. He can think of a hundred exasperated, disapproving things to say, can already feel a sigh developing deep in his chest and his head start to tilt at a disappointed angle.

“Look, they’re announcing the lineup,” Tajima grins and he quickly flips open to a new page in his binder, filling out the dates and the names in a practiced scrawl, tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth in concentration, snub nose shiny with sweat. He hunches over his lap, balancing the leather bound binder on the tops of his bony knees, every angle of his body curved in anticipation.

“So they are,” Hanai says instead, soft, and turns his face to the vast expanse of crayon-green field beyond, listening to the soft scritch-scratch of pencil and the echoes of the PA announcer’s voice reverberate through the Dome. “So they are.”


End file.
